The Smith And The Demon

The Smith And The Demon THE SMITH AND THE DEMON.[69] Once upon a time there was a Smith, and he had one son, a sharp, smart, six-year-old boy. One day the old man went to church, and as he stood before a picture of the Last Judgment he saw a Demon painted there--such a terrible one!--black, with horns and a tail. "O my!" says he to himself. "Suppose I get just such another painted for the smithy." So he hired an artist, and ordered him to paint on the door of the smithy exactly such another demon as he had seen in the church. The artist painted it. Thenceforward the old man, every time he entered the smithy, always looked at the Demon and said, "Good morning, fellow-countryman!" And then he would lay the fire in the furnace and begin his work. Well, the Smith lived in good accord with the Demon for some ten years. Then he fell ill and died. His son succeeded to his place as head of the household, and took the smithy into his own hands. But he was not disposed to show attention to the Demon as the old man had done. When he went into the smithy in the morning, he never said "Good morrow" to him; instead of offering him a kindly word, he took the biggest hammer he had handy, and thumped the Demon with it three times right on the forehead, and then he would go to his work. And when one of God's holy days came round, he would go to church and offer each saint a taper; but he would go up to the Demon and spit in his face. Thus three years went by, he all the while favoring the Evil One every morning either with a spitting or with a hammering. The Demon endured it and endured it, and at last found it past all endurance. It was too much for him. "I've had quite enough of this insolence from him!" thinks he. "Suppose I make use of a little diplomacy, and play him some sort of a trick!" So the Demon took the form of a youth, and went to the smithy. "Good day, uncle!" says he. "Good day!" "What should you say, uncle, to taking me as an apprentice? At all events, I could carry fuel for you, and blow the bellows." The Smith liked the idea. "Why shouldn't I?" he replied. "Two are better than one." The Demon began to learn his trade; at the end of a month he knew more about smith's work than his master did himself, was able to do everything that his master couldn't do. It was a real pleasure to look at him! There's no describing how satisfied his master was with him, how fond he got of him. Sometimes the master didn't go into the smithy at all himself, but trusted entirely to his journeyman, who had complete charge of everything. Well, it happened one day that the master was not at home, and the journeyman was left all by himself in the smithy. Presently he saw an old lady[70] driving along the street in her carriage, whereupon he popped his head out of doors and began shouting:-- "Heigh, sirs! Be so good as to step in here! We've opened a new business here; we turn old folks into young ones." Out of her carriage jumped the lady in a trice, and ran into the smithy. "What's that you're bragging about? Do you mean to say it's true? Can you really do it?" she asked the youth. "We haven't got to learn our business!" answered the Demon. "If I hadn't been able to do it, I wouldn't have invited people to try." "And how much does it cost?" asked the lady. "Five hundred roubles altogether." "Well, then, there's your money; make a young woman of me." The Demon took the money; then he sent the lady's coachman into the village. "Go," says he, "and bring me here two buckets full of milk." After that he took a pair of tongs, caught hold of the lady by the feet, flung her into the furnace, and burnt her up; nothing was left of her but her bare bones. When the buckets of milk were brought, he emptied them into a large tub, then he collected all the bones and flung them into the milk. Just fancy! at the end of about three minutes the lady emerged from the milk--alive, and young, and beautiful! Well, she got into her carriage and drove home. There she went straight to her husband, and he stared hard at her, but didn't know she was his wife. "What are you staring at?" says the lady. "I'm young and elegant, you see, and I don't want to have an old husband! Be off at once to the smithy, and get them to make you young; if you don't, I won't so much as acknowledge you!" There was no help for it; off set the seigneur. But by that time the Smith had returned home, and had gone into the smithy. He looked about; the journeyman wasn't to be seen. He searched and searched, he enquired and enquired, never a thing came of it; not even a trace of the youth could be found. He took to his work by himself, and was hammering away, when at that moment up drove the seigneur, and walked straight into the smithy. "Make a young man of me," says he. "Are you in your right mind, Barin? How can one make a young man of you?" "Come, now! you know all about that." "I know nothing of the kind." "You lie, you scoundrel! Since you made my old woman young, make me young too; otherwise, there will be no living with her for me." "Why I haven't so much as seen your good lady." "Your journeyman saw her, and that's just the same thing. If he knew how to do the job, surely you, an old hand, must have learnt how to do it long ago. Come, now, set to work at once. If you don't, it will be the worse for you. I'll have you rubbed down with a birch-tree towel." The Smith was compelled to try his hand at transforming the seigneur. He held a private conversation with the coachman as to how his journeyman had set to work with the lady, and what he had done to her, and then he thought:-- "So be it! I'll do the same. If I fall on my feet, good; if I don't, well, I must suffer all the same!" So he set to work at once, stripped the seigneur naked, laid hold of him by the legs with the tongs, popped him into the furnace, and began blowing the bellows. After he had burnt him to a cinder, he collected his remains, flung them into the milk, and then waited to see how soon a youthful seigneur would jump out of it. He waited one hour, two hours. But nothing came of it. He made a search in the tub. There was nothing in it but bones, and those charred ones. Just then the lady sent messengers to the smithy, to ask whether the seigneur would soon be ready. The poor Smith had to reply that the seigneur was no more. When the lady heard that the Smith had only turned her husband into a cinder, instead of making him young, she was tremendously angry, and she called together her trusty servants, and ordered them to drag him to the gallows. No sooner said than done. Her servants ran to the Smith's house, laid hold of him, tied his hands together, and dragged him off to the gallows. All of a sudden there came up with them the youngster who used to live with the Smith as his journeyman, who asked him:-- "Where are they taking you, master?" "They're going to hang me," replied the Smith, and straightway related all that had happened to him. "Well, uncle!" said the Demon, "swear that you will never strike me with your hammer, but that you will pay me the same respect your father always paid, and the seigneur shall be alive, and young, too, in a trice." The Smith began promising and swearing that he would never again lift his hammer against the Demon, but would always pay him every attention. Thereupon the journeyman hastened to the smithy, and shortly afterwards came back again, bringing the seigneur with him, and crying to the servants: "Hold! hold! Don't hang him! Here's your master!" Then they immediately untied the cords, and let the Smith go free. From that time forward the Smith gave up spitting at the Demon and striking him with his hammer. The journeyman disappeared, and was never seen again. But the seigneur and his lady entered upon a prosperous course of life, and if they haven't died, they're living still.[71] FOOTNOTES: [11] Dasent's "Popular Tales from the Norse," p. xl. [12] Max Müller, "Chips," vol. ii. p. 226. [13] Take as an illustration of these remarks the close of the story of "Helena the Fair" (No. 34, Chap. IV.). See how light and bright it is (or at least was, before it was translated). [14] I speak only of what I have seen. In some districts of Russia, if one may judge from pictures, the peasants occupy ornamented and ornamental dwellings. [15] Khudyakof, vol. ii. p. 65. [16] Khudyakof, vol. ii. p. 115. [17] For a description of such social gatherings see the "Songs of the Russian People," pp. 32-38. [18] Afanasief, vi. No. 66. [19] Cakes of unleavened flour flavored with garlic. [20] The _Nechistol_, or unclean. (_Chisty_ = clean, pure, &c.) [21] Literally, "on thee no face is to be seen." [22] I do not propose to comment at any length upon the stories quoted in the present chapter. Some of them will be referred to farther on. Marusia's demon lover will be recognized as akin to Arabian Ghouls, or the Rákshasas of Indian mythology. (See the story of Sidi Norman in the "Thousand and One Nights," also Lane's translation, vol. i., p. 32; and the story of Asokadatta and Vijayadatta in the fifth book of the "Kathásaritságara," Brockhaus's translation, 1843, vol. ii. pp. 142-159.) For transformations of a maiden into a flower or tree, see Grimm, No. 76, "Die Nelke," and the notes to that story in vol. iii., p. 125--Hahn, No. 21, "Das Lorbeerkind," etc. "The Water of Life," will meet with due consideration in the fourth chapter. The Holy Water which destroys the Fiend is merely a Christian form of the "Water of Death," viewed in its negative aspect. [23] Chudinsky, No. 3. [24] Afanasief, vi. p. 325. Wolfs "Niederlandische Sagen," No. 326, quoted in Thorpe's "Northern Mythology," i. 292. Note 4. [25] A number of ghost stories, and some remarks about the ideas of the Russian peasants with respect to the dead, will be found in Chap. V. Scott mentions a story in "The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border," vol. ii. p. 223, of a widower who believed he was haunted by his dead wife. On one occasion the ghost, to prove her identity, gave suck to her surviving infant. [26] Afanasief, viii. p. 165. [27] In West-European stories the devil frequently carries off a witch's soul after death. Here the fiend enters the corpse, or rather its skin, probably intending to reappear as a vampire. Compare Bleek's "Reynard the Fox in South Africa," No. 24, in which a lion squeezes itself into the skin of a girl it has killed. I have generally rendered by "demon," instead of "devil," the word _chort_ when it occurs in stories of this class, as the spirits to which they refer are manifestly akin to those of oriental demonology. [28] For an account of which, see the "Songs of the Russian People," pp. 333-334. The best Russian work on the subject is Barsof's "Prichitaniya Syevernago Kraya," Moscow, 1872. [29] Afanasief, iv. No. 9. [30] Professor de Gubernatis justly remarks that this "howling" is more in keeping with the nature of the eastern jackal than with that of its western counterpart, the fox. "Zoological Mythology," ii. 130. [31] Afanasief, vii. No. 45. [32] _Pope_ is the ordinary but disrespectful term for a priest (_Svyashchennik_), as _popovich_ is for a priest's son. [33] "Father dear," or "reverend father." [34] A phrase often used by the peasants, when frightened by anything of supernatural appearance. [35] Afanasief, Skazki, vii. No. 49. [36] The Russian expression is _gol kak sokòl_, "bare as a hawk." [37] In another story St. Nicolas's picture is the surety. [38] Another variant of this story, under the title of "Norka," will be quoted in full in the next chapter. [39] Afanasief, vii. p. 107. [40] Afanasief, vii. p. 146. [41] Or "The Seven-year-old." Khudyakof, No. 6. See Grimm, No. 94, "Die kluge Bauerntochter," and iii. 170-2. [42] _Voevoda_, now a general, formerly meant a civil governor, etc. [43] Afanasief. "Legendui," No. 29. [44] Diminutive of Peter. [45] The word employed here is not _chort_, but _diavol_. [46] Some remarks on the stories of this class, will be found in Chap. VI. The Russian peasants still believe that all people who drink themselves to death are used as carriers of wood and water in the infernal regions. [47] In the sixty-fourth story of Asbjörnsen's "Norske Folke-Eventyr," (Ny Samling, 1871) the dispute between the husband and wife is about a cornfield--as to whether it should be reaped or shorn--and she tumbles into a pool while she is making clipping gestures "under her husband's nose." In the old fabliau of "Le Pré Tondu" (Le Grand d'Aussy, Fabliaux, 1829, iii. 185), the husband cuts out the tongue of his wife, to prevent her from repeating that his meadow has been clipped, whereupon she makes a clipping sign with her fingers. In Poggio's "Facetiæ," the wife is doubly aggravating. For copious information with respect to the use made of this story by the romance-writers, see Liebrecht's translations of Basile's "Pentamerone," ii. 264, and of Dunlop's "History of Literature," p. 516. [48] Afanasief, v. p. 16. [49] Ibid., iii. p. 87. [50] Chudinsky, No. 8. The proverb is dear to the Tartars also. [51] Ibid. No. 23. The _liulka_, or Russian cradle, is suspended and swung, instead of being placed on the floor and rocked. Russian babies are usually swaddled tightly, like American papooses. [52] "Panchatantra," 1859, vol. i. § 212, pp. 519-524. I gladly avail myself of this opportunity of gratefully acknowledging my obligations to Dr. Benfey's invaluable work. [53] Afanasief, i. No. 9. Written down in the Novgorod Government. Its dialect renders it somewhat difficult to read. [54] This story is known to the Finns, but with them the Russian Demon, (_chortenok_ = a little _chort_ or devil), has become the Plague. In the original Indian story the demon is one which had formerly lived in a Brahman's house, but had been frightened away by his cantankerous wife. In the Servian version (Karajich, No. 37), the opening consists of the "Scissors-story," to which allusion has already been made. The vixen falls into a hole which she does not see, so bent is she on controverting her husband. [55] Afanasief, ii. No. 12. Written down by a "Crown Serf," in the government of Perm. [56] Afanasief, viii. No. 20. A copeck is worth about a third of a penny. [57] The story is continued very little further by Afanasief, its conclusion being the same as that of "The Wise Wife," in Book vii. No. 22, a tale of magic. For a Servian version of the tale see Vuk Karajich, No. 7. [58] Afanasief, v. No. 3. From the Novgorod Government. [59] Literally, "has bid to live long," a conventional euphemism for "has died." "Remember what his name was," is sometimes added. [60] It will be observed that the miser holds out against the pain which the scalded demon was unable to bear. See above, p. 21. [61] Professor de Gubernatis remarks that he may sometimes be called "the first Brutus of popular tradition." "Zoological Mythology," vol. i. p. 199. [62] Afanasief, v. No. 53. [63] _Zavtrakami podchivat_ = to dupe; _zavtra_ = to-morrow; _zavtrak_ = breakfast. [64] One of the inferior members of the Russian clerical body, though not of the clergy. But in one of the variants of the story it is a "pope" or priest, who appears, and he immediately claims a share in the spoil. Whereupon the Simpleton makes use of his hatchet. Priests are often nicknamed goats by the Russian peasantry, perhaps on account of their long beards. [65] Afanasief, ii. No. 8, v. No. 5. See also Khudyakof, No. 76. Cf. Grimm, No. 34, "Die kluge Else." Haltrich, No. 66. Asbjörnsen and Moe, No. 10. (Dasent No. 24, "Not a Pin to choose between them.") [66] Afanasief, ii. No. 5. Written down by a crown-peasant in the government of Perm. [67] _Mizgir_, a venomous spider, like the Tarantula, found in the Kirghiz Steppes. [68] In another story bearing the same title (v. 39) the spider lies on its back awaiting its prey. Up comes "the honorable widow," the wasp, and falls straight into the trap. The spider beheads her. Then the gnats and flies assemble, perform a funeral service over her remains, and carry them off on their shoulders to the village of Komarovo (_komar_ = gnat). For specimens of the Russian "Beast-Epos" the reader is referred (as I have stated in the preface) to Professor de Gubernatis's "Zoological Mythology." [69] Afanasief, "Legendui," No. 31. Taken from Dahl's collection. Some remarks on the Russian "legends" are given in Chap. VI. [70] _Baruinya_, the wife of a _barin_ or seigneur. [71] The _chort_ of this legend is evidently akin to the devil himself, whom traditions frequently connect with blacksmiths; but his prototype, in the original form of this story, was doubtless a demigod or demon. His part is played by St. Nicholas in the legend of "The Priest with the Greedy Eyes," for which, and for further comment on the story, see Chap. VI. CHAPTER II. MYTHOLOGICAL. _Principal Incarnations of Evil._ The present chapter is devoted to specimens of those skazkas which most Russian critics assert to be distinctly mythical. The stories of this class are so numerous, that the task of selection has been by no means easy. But I have done my best to choose such examples as are most characteristic of that species of the "mythical" folk-tale which prevails in Russia, and to avoid, as far as possible, the repetition of narratives which have already been made familiar to the English reader by translations of German and Scandinavian stories. There is a more marked individuality in the Russian tales of this kind, as compared with those of Western Europe, than is to be traced in the stories (especially those of a humorous cast) which relate to the events that chequer an ordinary existence. The actors in the _comediettas_ of European peasant-life vary but little, either in title or in character, wherever the scene may be laid; just as in the European beast-epos the Fox, the Wolf, and the Bear play parts which change but slightly with the regions they inhabit. But the supernatural beings which people the fairy-land peculiar to each race, though closely resembling each other in many respects, differ conspicuously in others. They may, it is true, be nothing more than various developments of the same original type; they may be traceable to germs common to the prehistoric ancestors of the now widely separated Aryan peoples; their peculiarities may simply be due to the accidents to which travellers from distant lands are liable. But at all events each family now has features of its own, typical characteristics by which it may be readily distinguished from its neighbors. My chief aim at present is to give an idea of those characteristics which lend individuality to the "mythical beings" in the Skazkas; in order to effect this, I shall attempt a delineation of those supernatural figures, to some extent peculiar to Slavonic fairy-land, which make their appearance in the Russian folk-tales. I have given a brief sketch of them elsewhere.[72] I now propose to deal with them more fully, quoting at length, instead of merely mentioning, some of the evidence on which the proof of their existence depends. For the sake of convenience, we may select from the great mass of the mythical skazkas those which are supposed most manifestly to typify the conflict of opposing elements--whether of Good and Evil, or of Light and Darkness, or of Heat and Cold, or of any other pair of antagonistic forces or phenomena. The typical hero of this class of stories, who represents the cause of right, and who is resolved by mythologists into so many different essences, presents almost identically the same appearance in most of the countries wherein he has become naturalized. He is endowed with supernatural powers, but he remains a man, for all that. Whether as prince or peasant, he alters but very little in his wanderings among the Aryan races of Europe. And a somewhat similar statement may be made about his feminine counterpart--for all the types of Fairy-land life are of an epicene nature, admitting of a feminine as well as a masculine development--the heroine who in the Skazkas, as well as in other folk-tales, braves the wrath of female demons in quest of means whereby to lighten the darkness of her home, or rescues her bewitched brothers from the thraldom of an enchantress, or liberates her captive husband from a dungeon's gloom. But their antagonists--the dark or evil beings whom the hero attacks and eventually destroys, or whom the heroine overcomes by her virtues, her subtlety, or her skill--vary to a considerable extent with the region they occupy, or rather with the people in whose memories they dwell. The Giants by killing whom our own Jack gained his renown, the Norse Trolls, the Ogres of southern romance, the Drakos and Lamia of modern Greece, the Lithuanian Laume--these and all the other groups of monstrous forms under which the imagination of each race has embodied its ideas about (according to one hypothesis) the Powers of Darkness it feared, or (according to another) the Aborigines it detested, differ from each other to a considerable and easily recognizable extent. An excellent illustration of this statement is offered by the contrast between the Slavonic group of supernatural beings of this class and their equivalents in lands tenanted by non-Slavonic members of the Indo-European family. A family likeness will, of course, be traced between all these conceptions of popular fancy, but the gloomy figures with which the folk-tales of the Slavonians render us familiar may be distinguished at a glance among their kindred monsters of Latin, Hellenic, Teutonic, or Celtic extraction. Of those among the number to which the Russian skazkas relate I will now proceed to give a sketch, allowing the stories, so far as is possible, to speak for themselves. If the powers of darkness in the "mythical" skazkas are divided into two groups--the one male, the other female--there stand out as the most prominent figures in the former set, the Snake (or some other illustration of "Zoological Mythology"), Koshchei the Deathless, and the Morskoi Tsar or King of the Waters. In the latter group the principal characters are the Baba Yaga, or Hag, her close connection the Witch, and the Female Snake. On the forms and natures of the less conspicuous characters to be found in either class we will not at present dwell. An opportunity for commenting on some of them will be afforded in another chapter. To begin with the Snake. His outline, like that of the cloud with which he is so frequently associated, and which he is often supposed to typify, is seldom well-defined. Now in one form and now in another, he glides a shifting shape, of which it is difficult to obtain a satisfactory view. Sometimes he retains throughout the story an exclusively reptilian character; sometimes he is of a mixed nature, partly serpent and partly man. In one story we see him riding on horseback, with hawk on wrist (or raven on shoulder) and hound at heel; in another he figures as a composite being with a human body and a serpent's head; in a third he flies as a fiery snake into his mistress's bower, stamps with his foot on the ground, and becomes a youthful gallant. But in most cases he is a serpent which in outward appearance seems to differ from other ophidians only in being winged and polycephalous--the number of his heads generally varying from three to twelve.[73] He is often known by the name of Zméï [snake] Goruinuich [son of the _gora_ or mountain], and sometimes he is supposed to dwell in the mountain caverns. To his abode, whether in the bowels of the earth, or in the open light of day--whether it be a sumptuous palace or "an _izba_ on fowl's legs," a hut upheld by slender supports on which it turns as on a pivot--he carries off his prey. In one story he appears to have stolen, or in some way concealed, the day-light; in another the bright moon and the many stars come forth from within him after his death. But as a general rule it is some queen or princess whom he tears away from her home, as Pluto carried off Proserpina, and who remains with him reluctantly, and hails as her rescuer the hero who comes to give him battle. Sometimes, however, the snake is represented as having a wife of his own species, and daughters who share their parent's tastes and powers. Such is the case in the (South-Russian) story of